With increasing IP telephony service and equipment options, there has never been a more opportune time for businesses to find communication solutions to fit their business needs. A communication solution must be able to provide flexibility to the workforce, refocus IT staff, consolidate vendor and provider relationships and lower cost.

With premise-based onsite solutions, the infrastructure should be installed and maintained by the company, and the external voice lines should also be provisioned. With hosted PBX services, the management of the entire system rests with the service provider, and the voice connectivity runs over either dedicated or shared IP connections to single or several locations.

Hosted PBX Services

In addition, hosted PBX service providers go beyond ordinary telephony service, bundling their products with a host of features and capabilities that incorporate elements of fully unified communications solutions. Such capabilities entail business application integration, video solutions, remote collaboration, mobility, web conferencing and integrated audio.

Hosted PBX services ensure that there is business continuity. For instance, if a business premise becomes inaccessible, it is possible to relocate a phone line without complex hardware installation. If the Wide Area Network (WAN) is lost and all communications within the premise are cut off, service providers can use mobile unified communications to reestablish a connection.

With hosted PBX solutions, staffs that were traditionally dedicated towards maintaining the hardware based system can be relocated to other mission critical areas, allowing the organization to re-focus on other initiatives, enabling them to reduce their overall operating costs.

For organizations with multiple satellite offices, hosted PBX solutions will deliver a centralized online portal connecting the different locations and remote employees, enhancing internal communications.

Some of the common features with hosted PBX providers include caller ID, call accept/reject, music on hold/transfer, text message notification, fax to e-mail, voicemail to e-mail, dial by name, simultaneous calls, multiple extensions, call routing and auto attendant.

Additionally, one factor to consider is cost analysis. In order to quantify the real benefits of a hosted PBX solution versus a premise based solution, scenarios should be compared on a midterm basis (this could be between a three to five year period).

In evaluating various cost components, various primary categories should be thoroughly reviewed. These include:

Upfront and installation costs. The organization should factor in the onetime software and hardware purchases including items such as routers/gateways, IP Phones, PBX's, dedicated broadband connection and installation and training charges.

Hosted service fees. Here the organization should carefully evaluate the monthly fees over the three to five year period and compare them to the cost of an in-house managed solution.

Equipment maintenance and upgrade. This involves annual maintenance contracts and the costs involved with upgrading the IP PBX to the latest software.

Operations and administration. This involves the cost of maintaining a staff that can administer the IP PBX system versus maintaining in-house solutions that consume physical space and power.

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